Hemphill will become head of wealth, insurance and non-bank
financial services at Africa’s biggest lender, Johannesburg-based Liberty said in a statement today. He will be replaced at
Liberty by Thabo Dloti, CEO of Stanlib, while Steven Braudo,
head of Liberty Retail South Africa, becomes deputy CEO, the
insurer said.

Liberty, which has followed Standard Bank in targeting
African expansion as growth in its home market slows, said in a
separate statement that full-year profit rose 5.6 percent to
3.91 billion rand ($361 million) from a year earlier. The
company expects its insurance and asset management units to
continue to attract higher levels of new business.

“There has been significant growth in the value of long-term insurance new business, customer cash inflows, operating
earnings and the group’s shareholder investment portfolio,”
said Liberty, which has operations in 14 African countries
outside of South Africa.

Liberty shares rose as much as 2.5 percent and were 0.6
percent higher at 120.73 rand as of 9:14 a.m. in Johannesburg
trading.

Earnings per share excluding one-time items increased to
15.59 rand, beating the 14.11 rand per share median estimate of
eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Liberty will pay a final
dividend of 3.69 rand per share, it said.